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"Ride the serverless wave by creating and maintaining a server"

by 013a 8y ago

sho 8y ago
You beat me to it. While this looks like some fairly cool automation, the very first step is to create a bloody server.
- garettmd 8y ago
  This is a funny thing, but still, having a "Function as a Service" is a nice tool to have, regardless of how truly "serverless" it is. Lambda, et al offer the convenience of not having to run your own server, but a FaaS is a great concept regardless of whether you're hosting it yourself or using a cloud provider's version.
  - atonse 8y ago
    I don't see how. I thought the whole use case for FaaS is that you're only paying for the literally milliseconds of compute time you use, and nothing more. But if you're already paying for the server, what's the point? I suppose you could host a lot more low-volume apps on one server?
    - stereographic 8y ago
      This is pretty edge case for who it would be useful for in my opinion? I have a small droplet on digital ocean I use to host a few small personal projects. $5/month is pretty reasonable and if I don't want to sign up for AWS, this is a fairly beneficial thing to know about. For people who want to use serverless functionality for cost benefit, it's probably not as helpful.
      - pc86 8y ago
        Serious question, what is the benefit to "serverless functionality" if not financial? The only benefit I'm aware of in micro-/milli-second level billing, and the infrastructure being obfuscated away from you.
        stereographic 8y ago
        Personally, it would be the benefit of not running 10+ express apps on a small server 24/7. I use a small server for personal projects and the traffic they get is minimal, but I also run a few small utilities off the same low-spec server 24/7. This is about the only benefit I see personally for me
elliotec 8y ago
Ok, we get it, “serverless” doesn’t mean “without a server.” its a misnomer. Can we all accept this now and talk about it underneath the semantics or does someone have the power to change it industry-wide? Just feels like every discussion about this technology is hijacked by the stupid nameto the point it’s all some can focus on.
- minimaxir 8y ago
  Normally, running a serverless App on something like AWS or GCP doesn't involve actually setting up a server as a part of the workflow.
- 013a 8y ago
  "Serverless" isn't a misnomer. It's the movement of management of everything below some API and/or Runtime to outside of your organization. A technology can enable a serverless culture within an organization, but that doesn't mean every deployment of a so-called "serverless" technology is actually serverless. If I write a lambda function, but then my ops team deploys it on a piece of metal running in their closet, its not serverless. Inversely, I can write a traditional stateful NodeJS app and give it to Heroku, and it becomes Serverless. In that sense, Serverless isn't really a quality of the technology, though certain technologies are optimized to be serverless. Its a quality of how its deployed, and more importantly your organizational culture around that. Of course, technologists hate this definition because we can't just call whatever we want Serverless. Moreover, Serverless starts seeming a lot less like the desired end-state we should aim for; often it makes sense to manage your own servers, just like it sometimes makes sense to manage your own hardware. OpenFaaS can totally be serverless. But to qualify, we'd have to be talking about an underlying Kubernetes infrastructure that abstracts the metal and OS away, so something like Fargate or Azure Containers. Certainly not on DigitalOcean. Here's the signal: If I can SSH into something within the stack, it's not Serverless.

"Ride the serverless wave by creating and maintaining a server"

by 013a 8y ago

"Ride the serverless wave by creating and maintaining a server"

sho 8y ago

You beat me to it. While this looks like some fairly cool automation, the very first step is to create a bloody server.

garettmd 8y ago
This is a funny thing, but still, having a "Function as a Service" is a nice tool to have, regardless of how truly "serverless" it is. Lambda, et al offer the convenience of not having to run your own server, but a FaaS is a great concept regardless of whether you're hosting it yourself or using a cloud provider's version.
- atonse 8y ago
  I don't see how. I thought the whole use case for FaaS is that you're only paying for the literally milliseconds of compute time you use, and nothing more. But if you're already paying for the server, what's the point? I suppose you could host a lot more low-volume apps on one server?
  - stereographic 8y ago
    This is pretty edge case for who it would be useful for in my opinion? I have a small droplet on digital ocean I use to host a few small personal projects. $5/month is pretty reasonable and if I don't want to sign up for AWS, this is a fairly beneficial thing to know about. For people who want to use serverless functionality for cost benefit, it's probably not as helpful.
    - pc86 8y ago
      Serious question, what is the benefit to "serverless functionality" if not financial? The only benefit I'm aware of in micro-/milli-second level billing, and the infrastructure being obfuscated away from you.
      - stereographic 8y ago
        Personally, it would be the benefit of not running 10+ express apps on a small server 24/7. I use a small server for personal projects and the traffic they get is minimal, but I also run a few small utilities off the same low-spec server 24/7. This is about the only benefit I see personally for me

elliotec 8y ago

Ok, we get it, “serverless” doesn’t mean “without a server.” its a misnomer. Can we all accept this now and talk about it underneath the semantics or does someone have the power to change it industry-wide? Just feels like every discussion about this technology is hijacked by the stupid nameto the point it’s all some can focus on.

minimaxir 8y ago
Normally, running a serverless App on something like AWS or GCP doesn't involve actually setting up a server as a part of the workflow.
013a 8y ago
"Serverless" isn't a misnomer. It's the movement of management of everything below some API and/or Runtime to outside of your organization. A technology can enable a serverless culture within an organization, but that doesn't mean every deployment of a so-called "serverless" technology is actually serverless. If I write a lambda function, but then my ops team deploys it on a piece of metal running in their closet, its not serverless. Inversely, I can write a traditional stateful NodeJS app and give it to Heroku, and it becomes Serverless. In that sense, Serverless isn't really a quality of the technology, though certain technologies are optimized to be serverless. Its a quality of how its deployed, and more importantly your organizational culture around that. Of course, technologists hate this definition because we can't just call whatever we want Serverless. Moreover, Serverless starts seeming a lot less like the desired end-state we should aim for; often it makes sense to manage your own servers, just like it sometimes makes sense to manage your own hardware. OpenFaaS can totally be serverless. But to qualify, we'd have to be talking about an underlying Kubernetes infrastructure that abstracts the metal and OS away, so something like Fargate or Azure Containers. Certainly not on DigitalOcean. Here's the signal: If I can SSH into something within the stack, it's not Serverless.